Not sure whether I think it’s a good move to have SEN Victoria alongside the main SEN 1170 station on DAB+ myself. Gonna be a tight squeeze fitting in five stations into 160kbps if they haven’t agreed to borrow some bits from Nine Radio on 9B.
On paper at least, you’d have to presume that SEN 1170 is likely to be more successful than Macquarie Sports Radio 954 ever was. But will SEN ever get 4.8% like 2CH did during the most recent radio ratings survey?
Do any of us think there’ll be external advertising for the launch of SEN 1170? I’m not really familiar with how SEN do things in Melbourne, so don’t know if they’ve ever spend money on ads in newspapers or TV, etc.
I’d say the main metric will be, will there be more profit? Ratings don’t matter as much, it probably the gambling revenue they get. Sky Sports radio have never changed formats because of ratings even since they were 2KY as long as I can remember. I am sure they make money.
Former NSW TAB happy to pay for 2KY in survey yet now as a merged entity, refuse to find the cash for 4TAB to be included. Much to the frustration I’m sure of many within as 4TAB has had for many years now a very successful breakfast show and racing feature.
Perhaps it’s out of professional jealousy? Sydney doesn’t want to be shown up by Brisbane?
What is supposedly track talk & calls is very much off format for narrowcast, beginning in breakfast.
Pat Welsh & Ian Healy host a sports breakfast show that is far wider than “pacing, racing and chasing”. It is a direct competitor to 4TAB’s breakfast show, only hours shorter.
In drive, there’s the Queensland sports day program, not a racing program, covers all sport.
Then there’s the many non racing sporting calls, AFL, league, whatever Crocmedia has rights to, it’s on air via SEN Track in Brisbane.
Tonight, there was a league match of Canberra v Eastern Suburbs. Hardly racing.
I don’t see how any of the above fits within a narrowcast licence.
Especially when SEN paid ACMA for a s21 opinion for SEN Adelaide and it was clearly stated that their all sports format was not narrowcast.
How and why are SEN getting away with this in Brisbane?
Wonder if they might try and open up to a wider talk format outside of key dayparts.
I noticed they were looking for a new overnights presenter recently. Kevin Hillier’s late night shift finished up uneventfully at RSN; as unlikely as it might be, he might come back over?
With the likes of Matty Johns joining the team, it’d be nice to hear a hybrid of sport & entertainment. Kind of like at 24/7 Continuous Call Team radio station.
There is a lot of sport to cover these days, but I remember years ago 2KY scheduling some relaxing ‘music magazine’ programs after the racing calls were over. Ray Warren also did talk-back in the mornings, which was very much “sports plus” with an eye to the day’s news - much like what they seem to be planning for 1170 SEN Breakfast with “a read of the paper from cover to cover”. Anyhow they have a full-service licence on 1170 and I think most sports fans (unless you are a really rusted-on fanatic!) like to have a touch of variety, especially if SEN does want to be a station people want to stay with throughout the day or across the weekend.
Radio is about the personality, the advantage SEN has they don’t have a 2GB overseeing the topics and sensitive if they compete. I enjoy Andrew Voss’s shows when he was at Nine and now at Foxtel (and still there) , like the Fan show is a good watch. Now he is back on free to air he can potentially have a wider audience again (ie not behind a paywall).
George Moore / Paul B Kidd were the only rebels on Talking Lifestyle but the eventually had to pushed to go to GB. The rest were like robots and had to focus on lifestyle topics and avoid news topics.
I will miss 2CH but looking forward to hearing SEN. There are no digital only 60s and 70s stations so there is a market there for 2CH to be “digital only”. All of Sydney’s digital stations seems to be all mostly focused on 80s/90s and newer stuff. It was attempted but 1SM and I think there was another station that did swing music but didn’t last long.
Yes it’s actually quite surprising there are no 70s digital stations. Heart UK which is a Hot AC station has a 70s station on DAB. Absolute Radio has both a 60s and 70s station although I think only through the app and not on DAB.
I still don’t know why ARN don’t have a classic hits stream on DAB based on the 4KQ playlist. They’ve got another 70s weekend coming up.
